In point of fact, Josiri had been halfway into a bottle when she’d left him. She hadn’t asked why. She hadn’t dared, for fear of the topic turning to Anastacia. And if that happened, everything would bubble to the surface – Josiri’s deceptions about their captivity at the fore.

More and more, Calenne wondered just how much she’d known of her brother had been the truth, concealed too long from the woman she was by the blinkered assumptions of the girl she’d once been. Her world had changed so much since she’d left Branghall. The brother she’d trusted stood revealed as a liar, and the man she’d feared was nobler than she could have believed. Trying to unpick it all only left her angry. Until that faded, Josiri was better off avoided. Selfish, perhaps, but wasn’t she entitled to be so, if only for a little while?

Viktor nodded. “I have to try. Without Josiri – without at least his backing – we’ll be hard-pressed in the days to come. The Raven will feast well.”

“Then leave us. Take your hearthguards, and that insolent captain of yours, and march home.”

“I cannot.”

“Why?” Calenne hadn’t known the frustration she harboured until the demand tore free. “If my brother won’t stand up – if my people won’t fight – why should you die in our defence?”

Viktor drew closer. A wry smile touched his lips. “All this concern. Would you truly weep if the Black Knight met his end?”

“I have no tears for the Black Knight,” said Calenne. “But for Viktor Akadra, I might manage a few.”

She glared at him, daring him to read more into a confession she barely understood herself. Was it because Viktor expected more of her than Josiri ever had? That he challenged her to be better?

He took her hands in his. “I’m a soldier. My duty is to fight for those who cannot. To stand the line when no one else will. Your mother understood that.”

“My mother . . .” Calenne chased the word from her thoughts. “Katya is dead.”

“Her people are not. I have a duty to them. So does your brother, even if he finds the price too painful.”

“Is it duty? Or is it pride?”

Calenne pulled free and turned away, overcome by contradictory emotion. Josiri had a duty. So did she. Viktor hadn’t spoken the words, but he must have thought them. Looking out across the muster field, she felt that duty more keenly than ever. Instead of flesh and blood soldiers, she saw grinning skeletons, caked in mud from upturned graves.